Mostly Harmless

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My Ears Are Now At 64%

He has quite a repertoire, of so many more specific types of shrieks than a person would ever want to know about. The most easily distinguishable one is the “please immediately feed me whatever I am looking at right now.” It is loud, but neither pleading, demanding, upset, nor (strictly speaking) excited. It is merely intent. “GUYS LOOK AT THAT, I NEED IT.”

His frustrated shriek sounds exactly like most babies’ “Please take me to the hospital” shriek. So when I close the dishwasher before he can climb in, the neighbours probably think one of the kids just landed on him.

The third of his most unusual shrieks is the one he saves for the dinner table, when we are all eating dinner. I think he’s too tired for eating by dinner time (which, at 6pm, is still a good 3 or 4 hours before he will consent to fall asleep), so he tries to get along with us, but usually ends up delivering his loudest and shrillest screams right beside us while we are all a captive audience, while I try to quiet him down by constantly feeding him with one hand while I try to eat with the other (he’s actually very good at feeding himself, just too screamy by that point.) I have developed the idea of giving him a 15 minute “quiet time” in his crib while we eat, and will try it out tomorrow as soon as we lower the crib bed so he can’t climb out.